Friday, April 23, 2010

Focus On: Vavoom

Vavoom is a new thread for us here at Rittenhouse Needlepoint. It comes in five yard skeins and is available in seven colors (white, black, red, tan, light gray, dark gray and pink). The thread is 100% polyester and consists of long hairy filaments attached to a fine, hallow core.Interestingly, the thread looks quite different on the ring than it does stitched up. Loose, Vavoom appears feathery like a boa but stitched up it looks soft like angora. To fluff up the yarn, brush with a toothbrush or a Bunka brush. This will create the look of a beard. Vavoom can also be used for fluffy areas such as pom-poms and fur trim.

Suggested stitches for use with Vavoom include Gobelin, slanted Gobelin, Giant Brick and Encroaching Gobelin. Complex decorative stitches are wasted on Vavoom since the hairiness of the yarn obscures detail.

Vavoom can be mixed with wool to achieve a mottled animal fur. This would help to achieve a more realistic effect (hair is rarely one solid color).

The manufacturer also suggests that the thread can be curled by used a heated metal knitting needle and rolling the threads like a curler. I'll leave that for you to try!

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About Me

Rittenhouse Needlepoint Main Site
Rittenhouse Needlepoint was founded by Russell Palmer and Stephen Janick.
Stephen started needlepointing 4 years ago. They had done lots of traveling and had seen needlepoint shops around the country so they knew what they wanted in a needlepoint store -- something fun and friendly, spacious and open, professional and devoted exclusively to needlepoint. In the fall of 2008 they decided to go for it and Rittenhouse Needlepoint is the result. Hope you can stop by and see the place. In the meanwhile, enjoy the blog!